TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The Newark Public Schools’ attempt to take back the former Maple Avenue School may be all but dead in light of New Jersey Superior Court judge’s June 6 lawsuit dismissal.
Superior Court-Newark Judge Lisa Adubato, according to court summaries, had dismissed NPS vs Newark Housing Authority and KIPP June 6. The school district wanted the judge to nullify NHA’s sale of Maple Avenue School – eventually – to KIPP Seek Academy and have the charter school vacate 33 Maple Ave.
NPS Superintendent of Schools Roger Leon has had the district’s legal department out to take back at least some of the 15 former school buildings that State District Superintendent Christopher Cerf had conveyed to the NHA in 2017. Cerf, the last state-appointed superintendent, had conveyed the “surplus” properties’ deeds to NHA for budget savings.
NHA, in Maple Avenue School’s case, sold 33 Maple Ave. to the Hanini Group for $1.2 million in 2017 so that Hanini could convert the 1920s-era elementary school building into an apartment house.
Hanini, in 2020, had started its renovations of the Weequahic section school when they then sold it to Friends of TEAM Academy for $10 million. TEAM Friends then turned the deed over to KIPP.
KIPP reopened Maple Avenue School for its TEAM Seek Academy in 2021. NPS launched its suit against NHA and KIPP in April 2020.
Adubato, while not stating her grounds for dismissal June 6, had said in a May 6 court hearing that NPS should have added a “no charter schools allowed” restriction in its conveyance to NHA. The judge, in an April hearing, said that NPS and NHA’s spending four years and $2.4 million on the legal issue was “shameful.”
IRVINGTON – A township man may have learned the hard way June 20 that a valid state handgun permit does not impress U.S. Transportation Safety Administration officers.
The unidentified man had entered Newark Liberty International Airport Terminal A that Thursday to board a flight – but left the airport under Port Authority Police escort.
The would-be flier came to the TSA Terminal A checkpoint with his revolver in his travel bag and his New Jersey firearms permit on him. Checkpoint staff, upon noticing the gun on its metal detector screen, detained the man and summoned PAPD.
A TSA spokesman explained that a state gun permit, whether for concealed carrying or not, does not allow a passenger to bring said weapon aboard. The Irvingtonian was not arrested but faces up to $15,000 in fines for bringing a gun to an airport checkpoint. He also missed his flight.
A Hellertown, Pa. woman, in a near-similar EWR detection case June 25, resulted in her arrest by PAPD. The woman, with her young daughter with her, said that he hardly uses the purse that carried the loaded .22 caliber revolver and had meant to hand it off to her husband before entering the Terminal B checkpoint. The daughter was also escorted to the PA’s EWR police station for her father’s pickup.
EAST ORANGE – A visitation for Juan Jose Angeles Lopez, 30 – who was killed by a neighbor’s tree in his own backyard during a June 26 thunderstorm – has been set for 5-9 p.m. July 8 at Newark’s Alvarez Funeral Home. The rest of Lopez’s last rite will be held in his native Mexico.
Lopez’s relatives told first responders that he was finishing a backyard barbecue with his family at 105 N. Munn Ave that Wednesday when a fast moving thunderstorm front began kicking up wind at about 8 p.m. He was trying to secure an outdoor umbrella when a large limb from a tree at 307 William St. broke off and fell on him.
The East Orange Fire Department rescue team found Lopez “unresponsive and unconscious” while pinned beneath the tree limb. They extricated Lopez and rushed him to CareWell Health Medical Center – where he was declared dead at 9:07 p.m. Lopez leaves behind a two-year-old daughter and his wife – who is seven months pregnant.
A Willimantic, Conn. woman was also killed by a fallen tree limb, among hundreds of tree damage and power outage reports across the New York City metropolitan area that night. Between a half-inch to a full-inch of rain fell and 60 mph wind gusts were reported.
Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green, at June 27’s press conference at 105 N. Munn, said that clothing and baby items for Lopez’s children may be dropped off at the city’s Department of Health and Human Services, 134 New St., 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Said items may also be dropped off at any EOFD station 24 hours a day.
A monetary GoFundMe.com page has been established, in care of The Lopez Family: gofundme.com/00828210.
ORANGE – An Orange Fire Department company found themselves occupying an East Orange Fire Department station around dawn June 29. The OFD company was not the only ones who found themselves in different surroundings that early Saturday morning.
That and an Irvington Fire Department company were covering two of EOFD’s stations while that city’s firefighters responded to a blaze at 135 Greenwood Ave. at 5:23 a.m. The incident commander promptly pulled a second alarm and for mutual aid.
Firefighters made sure that the house’s 18 residents, making up three families, were evacuated before Bloomfield Fire Department arrived at the “Teen Streets” section’s address. Although the fire was brought under control on 5:54 a.m., a city fire inspector determined that the 2.5-story house was uninhabitable.
Orange, Irvington and Bloomfield units returned to their home stations later that Saturday – but the same cannot be said of the three families. The local American Red Cross chapter found them temporary housing.
The 18 displaced people may have found more permanent residency when you read this.
WEST ORANGE – Motorists along Pleasant Valley Way will see one immediate and one near-future change on the Essex County road.
The Township Council, at their June 25 meeting, revealed a “No Stopping, No Standing” zone along two blocks of PVW/County Rd. No. 636 in the Pleasantville section.
That said zone now extends from Dawson Avenue to Wessman Drive by an NJTransit stop for the No. 73 bus and before the Ahavas Achim B’nai Jacob & David synagogue. New signs will be going up after July 4.
Three Colliers Engineering and Design engineers told the council that same Tuesday night meeting that PVW and Woodland Avenue, near the Verona border, will be getting a full traffic intersection signal featuring reflectorized plates. That Essex County Roads and Bridges Division project, however, will start closer to Labor Day.
West Orange Fire Station 4 and Cong. B’nai Shalom occupies two of PVW and Woodland’s corners. Colliers, of Holmdel, are consultants for the county.
The three Colliers engineers also introduced more than a traffic light replacement at Washington Street and Watchung Avenue. That Watchung Heights intersection will also get curb cuts and high-visibility crosswalks.
Washington Street, also known as Co. Road No. 671, runs from Main Street at Tory Corner east until it changes its name to Dodd Street, at High Street, in Orange.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education’s June 26 reinstatement of Frank Sanchez as Columbia High School Principal marks the latest move in a 14-day turnaround of his professional and legal fortunes.
The board voted in a 6-1-2 split vote before a packed Administrative Building auditorium that Thursday night, took Sanchez off his Jan. 2 administrative leave and to immediately bring him back. Board President Qwai Telesford, First Vice President Varun Vadlamani and members Elizabeth Callahan, Regenia Eckert, William Meyer and Shayna Sackett-Gable carried the reinstatement resolution.
Second Vice President Nubia DuVall Wilsom and member Kaitlain Wittleder abstained; Wilson said that she had a prior abuse experience and Wittleder said she needed more information. Member William “Bill” Gifford, saying that he could not “discount” the CHS sophomore student’s experience and that bias at the high school needed addressing, was the sole dissenter.
The June 26 vote and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office moving Sanchez’s misdemeanor simple assault-disorderly person charge to the Maplewood – South Orange Municipal Court room late June 25 marks a near-complete reversal of Sanchez’s fortune. The turn of events started when a Superior Court-Newark grand jury, on June 12, handed down a “no bill of indictment” against Sanchez for second-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
The suspended CHS principal, between March 8 and June 11, had been facing a count of second-degree felony endangering the welfare of a minor.
ECPO attorneys, after receiving an internal South Orange Maplewood School District Board of Education investigative document draft, issued an arrest warrant on Sanchez March 8; he surrendered himself to county prosecutors March 11.
Sanchez, who came aboard the two-town high school in June 2020, is accused of pushing a female sophomore against a CHS hallway wall on March 9, 2023. The girl, her parents and attorneys from the SOMA Black Parents Workshop claim that Sanchez used excessive force. “Friends of Frank” and other supporters assert that the principal was trying to break up an altercation.
Sanchez, without prior announcement but receiving sustained applause, gave out diplomas to the graduating CHS Class of 2024 at West Orange’s Codey Arena June 19. He had also appeared at South Orange and Maplewood’s respective middle school ceremonies around that time.
BLOOMFIELD – A Montclair man, for the second time in six months, was arrested for a theft-related charge – but this time by Bloomfield Police officers here June 10.
Officers on patrol were called to the North Center CVS Pharmacy by the store manager that Monday. The manager told them that a man had put bottles of body wash and deodorant items in a bag and had left 331 Broad St. without paying for them. The overall value of the stolen goods was $257.
Officers found Brandon Satterwaite, 36, of Montclair “nearby” and arrested him. The BPD blotter did not say how they found and identified him. He was processed in and released from the Ralph A. Colasanti Law Enforcement Building with a court date.
June 10 was apparently not the first time Satterwaite has had a scrape with the local law. The Jan. 9 blotter told of him being arrested for stealing items from two residences that Tuesday in part because he had an outstanding arrest warrant for a prior theft there.
SOPD, Jan. 9 processed Satterwaite before remanding the then-35-year-old to Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility.
MONTCLAIR – Township police detectives are looking for the person or persons who stole a pride flag that was placed in a central township location June 14.
The rainbow flag was raised June 7 by township officials from the Hinck Building at 470 Bloomfield Ave. that Friday. It took its place below the U.S, Ukrainian and Israeli flags as part of Montclair’s month of LGBTQIA+ celebrations.
The Hinck Building takes up the Bloomfield Avenue and Church Street point of Montclair’s Central Business District’s Five Points. North and South Fullerton avenues cross Bloomfield Avenue to make the intersection’s other points.
It did not take long for passers-by on June 14 to notice that the pole’s latest flag was missing. Police and Pride Month organizers Out Montclair notified.
Out Montclair held an extra rally and flag raising at the Hinck Building 5:30 p.m. June 24. MPD detectives are treating the theft as a bias crime.
BELLEVILLE – Township police said that an Elizabeth man, who was driving on a suspended license, struck and critically injured a 78 year old pedestrian here June 10.
The BPD dispatcher was told at 3:14 p.m. that Monday of a pedestrian being struck at the intersection of Union Avenue and Mill Street.
Responding officers found the 78-year-old woman in the crosswalk with a head injury. Police immediately called for EMS and the police’s traffic bureau. The victim was rushed to University Hospital and was admitted in critical condition.
Several officers meanwhile interviewed the driver of the 2014 Ford E35 box truck who had stayed at the scene. Traffic bureau officers had determined that the driver – Luis Alberto Talavera Lira, of Elizabeth – was going south with the 16-foot-long, 18-ton truck on Union Avenue while the victim was in the crosswalk. They also discovered that Talavera Lira was driving with a license that was suspended by the MVC.
Talavera Lira has been charged with causing bodily injury and driving with a suspended license.
This accident was near the site where another 78-year-old woman, Teresita Cenit was fatally injured in a similar incident May 24. Cenit, who was struck on Union Avenue’s 100 block, died of her injuries 90 minutes later. The driver, who stayed at the scene, was not charged.
NUTLEY – The Nutley Public Schools Board of Education, at their June 17 meeting, have brought back a familiar face as its latest School Business Administrator. The district’s board and administration has now-SBA Michael DeVita to start work Aug. 19.
DeVita had been in the NPS administration building before, first as a staff accountant and later as Assistant BA. He then left for the Kearny and Cedar Grove districts as part of his over 20 years’ experience.
DeVita succeeds David DiPisa, who was put on administrative leave by the board June 7 over his handling of the 2023-24 school budget. State Monitor Jeaneytte Makus had found that DiPisa had shifted money from the maintenance reserve and capital funds in an attempt to plug an $11 million shortfall in 2022-23. l. The board did not renew DiPisa’s contract.
The board had meanwhile passed a revised 2024-25 budget which included a $7 million loan from the state Department of Education to cover 2023-24’s shortfall. That budget, however, came with laying off a history teacher-coach, a mental health counselor and eight subject coordinators.
Makus is continuing her investigation and has veto power over NPS budgets and major purchases for the near future.
